Skerries Caravan Park Review

The Skerries Holiday Park is a huge Caravan Park that is situated on the outskirts of Portrush. The extremely well-equipped park provided for touring and static caravans, motorhomes and tents and has good views of the Atlantic ocean and Skerries Islands however these views are enjoyed by the Static caravans more than the tourers.

Although Trip Adviser scores the Skerries Holiday Park quite highly overall, there are a number of complaints in it about the staff being rude. My personal experience of the staff has generally been that they are pleasant and helpful but firm and business-like. However, on one occasion my mother who has difficulty walking, entered the park on a scooter with the intention of taking it to one of the static caravans. She was chased by one of the staff and told to remove it immediately from the park in no uncertain terms.

This was our second trip out in the 2011 season. This review is slightly different from normal in that we stayed in a close relative’s Static Caravan rather than in our own touring caravan. On a previous occasion we have stayed in Bessie, our touring caravan.

Arrival

We approached the park from Bushmills direction along the A2 coast road. The entrance to the park was clearly marked with a large “Welcome to the Skerries Holiday Park” sign.

Accessibility for tourers was not a problem as the entrance road to the park was a good quality tarmac road.

A barrier at the end of the entrance road prevented caravans entering the park until check-in was completed at reception. Cars were free to come and go as they pleased during the day.

A gate was locked late at night until early morning that prevented all traffic entering or leaving the site. There was a telephone number on the gate to call in order to get the gate opened in the event of an emergency.

The Skerries Holiday park contained a number of different areas and sites in these areas were interconnected with tarmac roads.

Just opposite reception, a large area with a variety of brand new static caravans for sale allowed potential customers to walk around and view the inside of the holiday homes before purchasing.

Tents

A tent area was on the right hand side that ran alongside the entrance to the park.

There was also an additional tent area that was located more centrally within the park.

The basic cost for a tent for one night was £15. There were additional costs depending on the number of people staying in the tent.

Touring Caravans

Also running alongside the entrance to the park was an area for touring caravans. There were 57 dedicated touring pitches here however there were some static pitches (13) that the tourers also used in the same area.

The touring pitches were a little cramped in comparison to other sites we have visited recently.

Each touring pitch has its own hardstand, an electric hookup and waste water drainage. Water taps were scattered in amongst the tourers

At the far right, at the bottom of the park there were an additional area for tourers that offered a further 15 sites. Touring caravans were also scattered sporadically through the static caravan area.

The cost for a touring caravan and an awning per night was £22.50.

Static Caravans

The majority of the park was taken up by static caravans and as you went further towards the back of the park, you climbed a hill and this offered good but distant views of the Skerries islands and the Atlantic Ocean. The tent and touring caravan areas of the park were on a lower level and did not have a sea view.

The Skerries contained both old and new sites. The static sites to the left (behind the reception) housed older caravans, while those sites up the hill and to the right were newer and more spacious. Static sites were numbered up to 829.

Facilities

At least nine access points provided Wi-fi for a fee on-site. It was necessary to put the laptop right up beside one window in particular in our static caravan in order to receive the full 4 bars of signal strength. With full signal strength, I carried out a broadband speed test and received 0.63 Mbps download speed. As soon as I moved even slightly away from the window the signal strength dropped to the point that I lost connection. A problem with the Wi-fi was that only one device could be connected to it at any one time. After connecting my iPhone, I could not connect my laptop until my iPhone’s session had disconnected. Unfortunately, it was only possible to disconnect the session by waiting for it to time out. This took approximately half an hour. Wi-Fi Prices are shown below:

The site encouraged recycling. There were bins for both general waste and paper. Newspapers, magazines, plastic bottles, food cans, drink tins and cardboard were all suitable to be disposed of in the paper bins.

A single modern building housed toilets, showers and kitchen / laundry room and sluice / Chemical Disposal Point for emptying the touring caravan’s cassette toilet. This block had been completely rebuilt in 2010 and was centrally located within the park. It took approximately two and a half minutes to walk from the building to the touring caravans and approximately three minutes to walk to the furthest point of the tents area.

The male toilet / shower room was immaculately clean and contained three wash hand basins, two hand dryers, four toilets, four urinals (one small), and five showers.

Shower rooms where quite a good size and well laid out as a wall partially separated the shower area and the dry area.

A raised area under the wooden seat was ideal for putting shoes while showering.

There were two hooks available to hang clothes on.

The showers cost 20 pence for two minutes (four minutes minimum).

The shower temperature was nice and hot but maybe a a little too hot for young children. It was not possible to adjust the temperature. I visited the showers on a Friday morning in August at about 9:30am and only 2-3 showers out of the five were occupied. The single toilet / shower block therefore seemed adequate for the size of the park.

There were disabled facilities however these were locked and it was not possible to investigate them. There was no family room.

The laundry room contained 3 washing machines and 3 tumble dryers.

The tumble dryer required £1 for 30 minutes. The washing machine costs were as follows:

Power electricity sockets in this room were also metered

Ironing facilities were not available.

Kitchen facilities were basic. There were two sinks.

There was an excellent children’s play area in the park. This contained a variety of swings, a zip line, a couple of slides and climbing areas and a children’s sandpit. A double tennis court was available behind the playpark.

A football pitch was also available:

A games room contained a table tennis table, snooker and pool tables and gaming machines

Tables and chairs provide an area to sit and eat some lunch or have a chat.

A good shop was available onsite that stocked food, magazines, caravan parts and other bits and pieces. In addition, The Skerries had its own Fish and Chip shop.

Conclusion

The Skerries Holiday Park is a huge Caravan Park with almost 1000 pitches. If you buy a new static caravan and a site on the hill, you can expect to have a reasonable sea view. Tourers and tents however will miss out on the sea view. The size of a touring caravan pitch does seem to be a little smaller than most other sites. Prices are around average for a touring caravan and awning. The Skerries location is good as it has a close proximity to Portrush (15 to 20 minutes walk). Both Juniper Hill and Carrick Dhu Caravan Parks offer slightly better location as they are both in-between and also within walking distance to both Portrush and Portstewart. The Skerries Caravan Park offers plenty of facilities and it stands out from the crowd with its entertainment facilities for the younger generation. A young family will love the play park and the games room. The shop and the chip shop offer convenience that few other caravan parks can match.

One comment on “Skerries Caravan Park Review”

We awoke at 4am to find a man had broken into our caravan and was standing over our 12yr old daughter, we scared him off.
We reported this to reception who assured us they would contact the police and review their cctv. After a few hours of no further contact we went back to find out what was happening only to be told “its your own fault if your caravan is not secure and we arn’t resposible for protecting your children” !!! to our horror we were told they were not interested in speaking to us or the police and when we said we felt unsafe and wanted to leave early the horrible lady said thats up to us but she will not be giving us any refund.
I will never set foot in this site again and everyone should be aware of the attitude of the staff when your daughter is afraid to sleep in a caravan again !!

The Skerries Caravan Park is an extremely well prepared park and it caters for touring and static caravans, motorhomes and camping tents and has good views of the Atlantic and Skerries Islands. Althou…